The Kaziranga National Park in India has deployed aerial drones to monitor poaching activity to protect the endangered one-horned rhino population.

Wild Indian rhinoceros in Kaziranga National Park. Photo by Yathin S Krishnappa.

Two-thirds (approx. 2,300) of the world’s one-horned rhinos live in this park, which also houses elephants, tigers, and other wildlife.

However, 21 rhinos have fallen victim to poaching last year and the use of drones may be needed to prevent this from happening.

The aerial drones can fly their route at a maximum elevation of 200m (656ft) for up to 90 minutes.

They are also light enough to be launched by hand and will be able to take images of the ground below with a still or video camera.

The Kaziranga National Park is using a similar system that was used by the WWF in the Chitwan National Park in Nepal, which turned out to be a great success.

This will be the first time that drones have been used to monitor wildlife in any Indian National Park and it will now be possible to keep an eye on the remotest parts of the enormous park (185 sq miles).

This data is from a report by the Book Industry Environmental Council (BIEC) and Green Press Initiative.

This same report, which comes from freely given information from the book industry, discovered that 89 percent of book publishers have environmental policies in place. That is nearly all of them!

In the past few years, groups such as the Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace have been angry with the book industry. This is because some publishers have been linked to rainforest destruction in Indonesia.

Rainforests are very special places with thousands of different types of plants and animals, with many kinds that haven’t even been discovered yet. It is very important to protect these places, not only because of all the special things that live there, but also because within the rainforests may be hidden some secret cures to diseases that exist in the world today.

It is thought that many top publishing companies established their environmental and sustainability policies because of the publishers caught participating in these activities

Because of these policies being put into place, 5.25 million trees were saved and greenhouse gas emission was reduced by 1.02 million metric tons.

Eight Central African countries have announced they will send a thousand soldiers after poachers responsible for killing 89 elephants in Chad earlier this month. The mobilization of soldiers and law enforcement officers is a sign that Central African countries are beginning to take elephant poaching more seriously.

Growing demand for ivory from elephant’s tusks in East Asia has caused poaching to rise. Elephant populations in Central Africa have been the hardest hit; a recent study in PLoS ONE estimated that 60 percent of the world’s forest elephants (found in the Congo rainforest) have been killed by poachers in the last ten years alone. In all, experts estimate that some 25,000 elephants were killed in 2011 for their tusks.

“Now, it is up to demand countries—[like] China and Thailand—to show that they have as much courage and determination as these Central African countries,” Bas Huijbregts, head of WWF’s Central African campaign against the illegal wildlife trade, said.

Australian scientists have produced cloned embryos of the gastric-brooding frog, which was known for giving birth through its mouth.

An artist’s impression of the gastric-brooding frog. Artwork: Peter Schouten

This extinct animal swallowed its eggs, brooded the young in its stomach, and gave birth through its mouth.

Even though the gastric-brooding frog became extinct in 1985, a team of researchers was able to recover cell nuclei from frozen frog tissue collected in the 1970s and implant it into a fresh egg from another frog species.

Some of the eggs then developed into an early embryo stage, but unfortunately none of the implanted eggs survived longer than a few days.

Even though the process has not yet worked, scientists are confident that the hurdles ahead are technological and not biological and eventually the cloning of this species will succeed.

Scientists would also like to use this technology as a conservation tool when hundreds of the world’s amphibian species are in major decline.

They are also interested in the gastric-brooding frog’s ability to shut down the secretion of digestive acids because it might help develop treatments for gastric ulcers in humans.

Many religious groups have taken on the role of environmental custodians, citing scriptures that urge living in harmony with plants and animals. The Sikh religion’s contribution to that effort is called “EcoSikh.” With 30 million followers, Sikhism (a religion based in the Punjab region of India) is the world’s fifth largest religion, making them a perfect candidate for environmental action.

Sikhs installed solar panels on the roof of their temple in Leicester, England.

Already, EcoSikh has made a big impact. The organization started Sikh Environmental Day on every March 14th. “Local Sikhs make the decision based on the awareness and needs of where they live,” explained Bandana Kaur, EcoSikh’s North American program manager. “Sikhs, Muslims and Sufis were working together on restoration projects. This past year, there was a school in Hariyana [in Punjab] that started a tree nursery within their school.”

The program has also been successful in making Amritsar, a holy city in the Sikh religion, more eco-friendly. EcoSikh has begun to help the city become more green. “Considering the amount of food that Sikhs are growing, cooking, and serving to people, we also see the potential for [community kitchens] to serve organic food, which would have a positive impact on our health, our land and the region’s farmers… Amritsar made a decision last year to install 30 concentrated solar dishes to capture energy from the sun to fuel heat for cooking, replacing about half of the liquid petroleum gas used…with a renewable resource.

Bandana Kaur concludes hopefully, “My great-grandmother used to say one thing a lot: “Kudrat bari beant hai.” That translates directly as “The Creative Force is so limitless,” and it basically means, ‘Nature is so generous.’ That sensitivity is inspiring for our generation. It’s been incredibly powerful for me.”

A new species discovered in the Peak Wilderness Sanctuary: Pseudophilautus sirilwijesundarai. Photo by: L.J. Mendis Wickramasinghe.

Two studies in the forests of Sri Lank’s Peak Wilderness Sanctuary have uncovered eight new frog species. While every year over a hundred new amphibians are discovered, eight new discoveries in a single park is very rare.

The eight new species aren’t the only discovery from the Peak Wilderness Sanctuary, which has been dubbed a World Heritage Site. A paper by L.J. Mendis Wickramasinghe, with the Herpetological Foundation of Sri Lanka and his team recently announced the re-discovery of the starry shrub frog (Pseudophilautus stellatus), which had not been seen for 160 years and was believed to be extinct.

However most of the species, including the starry shrub frog, should be listed as Critically Endangered, according to the scientists. Habitat loss, small hydropower plants, and pollution from visiting tourists are some of the major threats to these long-hidden frogs.

Experts say that are one third of the world’s amphibians are currently threatened due mostly to habitat loss, pollution, and diseases which has likely been spread by humans and exotic frogs. Scientists think that around 130 amphibians have gone extinct since 1980, about 20 of which were found in Sri Lanka.

“There are many more [new species] to be published this is just a fraction of what remains to be uncovered,” Wickramasinghe told Mongabay.com. Stay tuned.

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